Saving problems....

[Sandra-chan]

(I have written alot about this, sorry ^^; I hope you'll have patience enough to read it...)

I have problems saving videos in mmv 2. It won't work! I have divx, xvid and CCCP codec installed, I have tried CCCP with both the original setting and these settings that Kariudo recommended another user who had problem with mmv:

you go start, all programs, combined community codec pack, video decoder settings
go through the codec list and disable ffdshow for all the codecs you have (click on the boxes that say libavcodec, you should then see a few options, one of which is disabled)

you'll probably be disabling divx, xvid, huffyuv and mpeg2
do the same for audio decoder settings

when you're done with that, you may need to click the CCCP settings icon (in the same place as decoder config)
disable decoding of anything you have (checkboxes, similar to the decoder config)
dsiable avi support for haali media splitter and click re-register all filters

When I try to save first it estimate the remaining time for some time, then it starts counting minutes, it's high numbers it counts, like 100 mins and upwards. Then it either loads for ages or a message comes up that says that I cannot save the movie file to the specific location. It also tells me to verify that the source files are in the original location and be sure that saving location is still available and that there is enough disk space.

I have check all those things and there shouldn't be a problem. I have had these problems with mmv before, in the first months when it was new it's works completely fine saving videos. But then after a while it starts bugging. The only option I have had was to save it as a DV-Avi file and then resave it. But that way I lose quality and I feel that I shouldn't have to do that.
Do you have any suggestions what I should do? I have heard that people say that divx/xvid dosen't work well with editing software and that you should encode your clips in a program like virtualdub, but then the files becomes huge, isn't there another way around it? Should I change the settings, download/unistall a codec or something else that will make the video saveable without losing too much quality? If the "solution" I have used (Saving as DV-Avi then resaving it) is the only way then I guess I have no other choice, but at least I wanted to ask you for advise first.

[Scintilla]

The only option I have had was to save it as a DV-Avi file and then resave it. But that way I lose quality and I feel that I shouldn't have to do that.

You're <i>so</i> close to the optimal solution. Save it as DV AVI, but don't re-save it with WMM2 -- compress it to a better format/codec with a better program for that kind of thing. For example, MPEG-1 with TMPGEnc, or XviD in AVI with VirtualDubMod (and don't forget to compress your audio too).

[Sandra-chan]

So if I resave it in a program like TMPGEnc the video becomes smaller in size and I don't lose quality? Does the sound quality get better too? (In DV-Avi format the sound is not so good...) I have never used a program like TMPGEnc before, I have downloaded it now but there are so many options to what format you should encode it into, which one is the best do you think?

[Scintilla]

If you're using TMPGEnc, I suggest <a href="http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... html">this guide</a>.

Yes, you'll be losing some fidelity -- that's the only way to get your video to a distributable size -- but you can mitigate that by <a href="http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... ltering</a> the big DV AVI copy before you encode the distribution version from it. And MPEG-1 and AVI are both easier formats to deal with, speaking from a viewer's standpoint, than WMV.